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This invention relates generally to data structures for large hierarchical multimedia databases. More particularly, the present invention relates to a structured focused hypertext data structure in which hypertext nodes store identifying information about source and target documents or pages so that the relative positions in the hierarchy of the source and target documents as well as other information about the documents may be determined and utilized by both the user and a quality control computer program.
Hypertext is a well known concept and tool by which one document is linked to one or more other documents. Users access a desired, target document from a currently displayed, source document by selecting a portion of text which has some relationship to the target document and which has been visually distinguished as hypertext such as with the use of underlining or bolding. The link between documents is established in advance by the use of an anchor inserted before or near the hyperlinked text in the source document which contains the address of the target document. Hypertext is widely used in many commercially available products, including in Windows(copyright)-based software products and help files available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., and in the World Wide Web accessible through the Internet which utilizes Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML.
The manner in which hypertext is used in these and many other currently available software products is represented generally in the diagram 10 shown in FIG. 1. Each circle 12 in this diagram represents a document or page of information, commonly referred to as a xe2x80x9cnode,xe2x80x9d which contains one or more hypertext links to other pages, as shown by the lines 14 connecting the nodes. The arrows in the diagram 10 represent hypertext links to additional nodes not shown in the diagram. The diagram 10 in FIG. 1 loosely takes the form of a web, with hypertext links extending from nodes in an unorganized and unstructured manner.
Hypertext is advantageous because it is easy to use and mirrors the associative thought processes of users. However, currently available hypertext systems contain several problems which have prevented hypertext from becoming the primary search tool for many developers of large multimedia databases. One problem with existing hypertext systems is that users seeking a specific bit of information contained in one node often need to jump from node to node in an essentially undirected and unfocused manner until reaching the node containing the desired information. Users have little assurance that they are getting closer to the desired information as more jumps are made, and can easily get sidetracked into nodes located far from the desired node.
Furthermore, hypertext alone provides little guidance as to what type of the information users will receive after jumping to another document. For example, users may wish to see a photograph, graphical image, or motion video rather than text, but have no way of knowing based on the presence of a hypertext link whether the target document contains such information. As a result they are often required to jump to the other document just to discover whether it contains useful information of a desired type, and to return to the source document afterwards to continue searching for a more appropriate hypertext connection. To convey information to users regarding the type of information contained in a target document, the author of the source document needs to insert additional text (such as xe2x80x9cclick here to see picturexe2x80x9d) or a graphical image such as an clickable icon indicating the type of information contained in the target document. This provides additional work and inconvenience for the author, and the additional text or graphical image will become inaccurate if the information contained in the target document is changed.
Another well-known problem with the hypertext system represented by the diagram 10 of FIG. 1 is the tendency for users to feel lost after several hypertext jumps. As a result, users are often required to backtrack through previously visited nodes or to refer to lists of previously visited sites to find their way.
Clearly, these problems with current hypertext systems grow exponentially with the number of hypertext links used. The number of hypertext links appearing in any given document must therefore be limited in existing systems, and these simple hypertext systems usually contain an average of about two-three links per page. Thus, in order to effectively browse through a large number of separate pages of information (by eliminating hypertext link choices), for example, 2000 pages, a user would need to make about seven hypertext jumps (37=2187), whereas if each page contained 10 hypertext links, a user would only need to make about three or four jumps. The necessary limitation on the number of hypertext link in existing hypertext systems because of the exponential growth of the problems discussed above thus further limits the capability of hypertext to serve as a primary database search tool.
These problems are particularly prevalent in the design of large multimedia databases containing a large volume of information (e.g., 2,000-10,000 pages) of a technical nature, such as medical information, which is constantly changing and needs to be updated on a regular basis. Doctors must be able to quickly access key, up-to-date medical and patient information while visiting with a patient, and must keep abreast with a vast volume of current medical literature. The best way in which to provide access to this information is in the form in which doctors think, i.e., by associative thinking. However, because of the problems described above, existing hypertext systems are inadequate to serve as a comprehensive search mechanism for a large medical multimedia database.
An additional problem faces designers of a large medical database for use by doctors. Medical knowledge may be broken into types or categories (e.g., diseases, tests, and procedures) and each of these types may be further broken down into subtypes. These types and subtypes may be useful in designing a hierarchical database. However, certain medical knowledge may be accurately categorized in many ways. For example, celiac disease may be categorized as both a digestive disorder and an immunodeficient disorder. Furthermore, doctors may otherwise disagree on how to categorize many parts of medical knowledge. Thus, the usefulness of such categorizations in a hierarchical database is severely limited. Applicant(s) are unaware of any existing medical or other type of large database which uses categorizations but accounts for possible differences in categorization.
The present invention substantially solves these problems and provides the heretofore missing data structure for a large multimedia database which provides for hypertext to be used in a structured, focused manner so that users can quickly find specific bits of information using a natural associative thinking process.
It is an object of the present invention to solve the problems described above associated with existing hypertext systems.
It is another object of the present invention to facilitate search and navigation through a large multimedia database.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of informing users of a large database organized in a hierarchical fashion of the relative position in the hierarchy of a page or document targeted by a hypertext link as compared to a currently displayed source document or page.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of informing users of a multimedia database of the type of information contained in a document or page which is the target of a hypertext link without the need to add additional text or graphics to the source document.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for automatically checking the quality of the hypertext links in a large hierarchical database according to a predetermined set of protocols.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a hierarchical data structure for a large database in which chapters are divided into categories and in which different ways of categorizing chapters are accounted for in the hierarchy.
In achieving the above and other objects, the invention provides a hierarchical hypertext system in which one or more of the following may be determined: the relative positions in the hierarchy of related data units linked by a hypertext link; the presence of graphics in one or both of the data units; and the presence of a utility application in one or both of the data units. In one embodiment, hypertext linked data units may also be linked with a database, which enables any desired information in the system relating to a linked data unit to be provided to the user, and provides the capability of performing quality control testing on the quality of the hypertext links and database structure.
In the preferred embodiment, the relational or other information provided by the system is visually indicated on a displayed hypertext link by a color coding scheme, which may take any suitable form, or by a bolding, highlighting or other suitable visual scheme.
Other visual (or audio-visual) schemes will be apparent to those of skill in the art from the disclosure herein.
The invention provides a data structure, methods and systems as described herein. In a hypertexted data structure according to the invention, the data structure is stored on a computer readable memory device organized in a hierarchy of at least two levels, and comprises a plurality of data units, such as paragraphs, screens or pages, or chapters, positioned at different levels in the hierarchy, each containing at least some textual information and a plurality of hypertext links each linking at least part of the textual information in a given source data unit to a target data unit. At least one of the hypertext links is linked to at least one hypertext node which contains information relating at least to both the given source data unit and the target data unit. According to one embodiment, the linking is such that the relative positions in the hierarchy of the given source and target data units linked by the hypertext link may be determined. In another embodiment, the data structure comprises a database containing information relating to the data units; and the linking is such that the at least one hypertext node is linked to the data base.
In another embodiment, the hierarchical data structure comprises a plurality of first data units representing pages positioned at different levels in the hierarchy, each containing information, a plurality of second data units representing chapters positioned at different levels in the hierarchy, each containing at least one page or other chapter, and a plurality of links linking each of a plurality of pages simultaneously to two or more chapters, one chapter of which is labeled as a default chapter for each page.
The at least one hypertext node may be, for example, a data record in a database file or a separate file. Preferably, there are a plurality of hypertext node types each linked to a hypertext node, the hypertext node types including at least one of the following node types: (a) a node type linked to each hypertext node determined by the relative positions of the given source data unit and target data unit; (b) a node type linked to each hypertext node determined by the presence of graphics in the given source data unit, in the given target data unit, or in both the given source and target data units; and (c) a node type linked to each hypertext node determined by the presence of a utility application in the given source data unit, in the given target data unit, or in both the given source and target data units.
In the preferred embodiment, the hypertext node types comprise a set of visual indicators to be displayed on a display device connected to a computer reading the memory device, each visual indicator representing a different node type, for example, different colors displayed in association with textual information displayed at least as part of the respective data unit.
The data units may comprise pages and chapters, each chapter being linked to one or more pages. At least one hypertext link may link each chapter to each of the one or more pages linked to that chapter. Further, at least one page may be linked simultaneously to two or more chapters, one chapter of which is labeled as a default chapter for the at least one page.
The data structure may be organized in a hierarchy more than two levels, e.g., three or more levels. In a three level hierarchy, the data units may further comprise paragraphs, each paragraph being linked to one or more pages, and wherein at least one paragraph is simultaneously linked to two or more pages.
A method according to the invention structures a database which is stored in a memory device organized in a hierarchy of at least two levels such that the hierarchical relationship may be automatically retained when the database is changed. The method comprises positioning a plurality of data units at different levels in the hierarchy, each containing at least some textual information, creating a data base containing information relating to the data units, hypertext linking at least part of the textual information in a given source data unit to a target data unit such the relative positions in the hierarchy of the given source and target data units which are hypertext linked link may be determined, and further linking the linked source and target data units to the database.
Another method according to the invention structures a database stored in a memory device so as to provide a user the ability to quickly locate desired information stored within the database. This method comprises establishing a hierarchical structure for the information in the database, the hierarchical structure comprising one or more chapter levels and a plurality of pages, each page containing textual information, hypertext linking at least part of the textual information in every page in the database with at least one chapter level such that the relative positions in the hierarchy of given page and a given chapter level linked by the hypertext link may be determined, and hypertext linking at least part of the textual information in at least one page with at least one other page.
A computer system with which the present invention may be used includes computer hardware comprising at least one each of a processor, memory device, display, and input device. In a preferred embodiment, the hardware comprises a central processing unit, a plurality of memory devices of different types including one or more RAM memory devices, ROM memory devices, and other magnetic or optical memory devices and readers such as hard disks and hard disk drives, floppy disk drives, or CD-ROM drives, a display monitor, and a plurality of possible input devices including a keyboard, mouse, electronic stylus with digitizer tablet, microphone with voice recognition software, or touch screen. All of these elements and the manner in which they are connected are well-known in the art. In addition, one skilled in the art will recognize that it is not necessary for all of these elements to be connected in a single unit such as a personal computer, but may be connected in a mainframe environment or over a network or via other communications links. The computer system is operated by any conventional operating system, including the MS-DOS(copyright) or Windows(copyright) operating systems available from Microsoft or the System 7 operating system available from Apple Computer of Cupertino, Calif.